A draft Climate Change Strategic Framework was released by the GNWT for external comment during December 2016 and January 2017. Numerous comments were submitted by Indigenous governments, community organizations, industry, non-government organizations and the public, covering many themes and topics pertaining to climate change. This valuable input informed the final 2030 NWT Climate Change Strategic Framework. A broad summary of comments received, and what the GNWT did to address comments, is outlined under eight themes in this document.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) is leading the development of
the NWT Climate Change Strategic Framework and the Department of Infrastructure (INF) is
leading the development of the NWT Energy Strategy.
Given the key linkages between these two initiatives, ENR and INF worked together to gather
public input through a survey and six regional engagement workshops. This work was done
between August 2016 and March 2017. The Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT)
also received written submissions from several organizations during this same period and
hosted a facilitated electricity sector stakeholder meeting to discuss current issues.
The survey and the six workshops focused on key energy and climate change-related themes.

To mark Canada’s 150th Anniversary, BioBlitz Canada 150, a national partnership of nature organizations, brought together the Canadian public with scientists to explore the richness of Canada’s biodiversity and to engage our passion to know, celebrate and conserve our natural heritage.

The Canadian Heritage Rivers System requires ten-year monitoring reports to assess whether designated rivers continue to meet the criteria for designation as a Canadian Heritage River.

The first ten-year monitoring report for the Tsiigehnjik/Arctic Red River was published in 2005, and covered the period 1993-2003.

The second ten-year monitoring report for Tsiigehnjik covers the period 2005-2014. This assessment builds on the first ten-year report, and is based on the river’s cultural, recreational, renewable resource, biodiversity and intrinsic value to local Indigenous community members.

This paper looks at the Arctic's rapid and intense warming trend using Environment Canada weather stations data from four communities in the NWT. The airport weather stations in Inuvik, Norman Wells, Yellowknife and Fort Smith date back to the 1940s and are the longest standing and most consistent climate stations in the NWT. The report contains information from datasets between 1957 and 2012. These four communities sit on a rough north to south transect and are well spaced to provide a good overview of the trends in the Mackenzie River watershed.

The following is a summary of a completed study that mapped the predicted ecosystem changes that would occur in the NWT and Alaska (not shown) due to warming temperatures associated with climate change. Three scenarios, based on global greenhouse gas emissions, were studied; a low temperature increase, an average temperature increase, and a high temperature increase. The results were overlain on a map of the NWT, and these maps are presented in this summary. For more information on the study and its methodology, please refer to the full report completed by the Scenarios Network for Arctic Planning and the EWHALE lab, University of Alaska Fairbanks.